is the Fire Raptor still worth its points?

[Saxxon the Dragoon]

So my Forgeworld order came in and finally got my own fire raptor. still got to assemble it (spent last night cutting, filing and fixing some stuff as well as drilling the barrels, gonna clean and start putting it together tonight). The question is whether or not its worth its points with the massive point hike it got with the FAQ.

 

I am not trying to go full WAAC, but I wanted more BBBRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRTTT in my life.

 

I mean going from 190 to 280 is not insignificant. Making it 448 (quad heavy bolters) pts baseline for what it comes with. I still plan on flying it in my lists but thats a whole tac squad worth of points increase. Do you guys still think its worth taking nowadays in a standard list. Granted the firepower it brings is not insignificant, and having 2 devastator squads worth firepower on a flying base is good. but did it really need nearly a 100pt increase?

[NovemberIX]

Since the updates I haven't played a game yet, but based on previous experience the Fire Raptor was deeply undercosted for its performance, I still plan on taking it in the future and with some luck adding another one to my air wing down the road.

[The Yncarne]

I’ve played one game with the chaos variant under the new cost. It killed 6 cultists so impossible to recommend it after one game.

[BLACK BLΠFLY]

90 points is a lot no matter how you slice it... that is quite the nerf .

[Claws and Effect]

It pretty much killed it for me at anything under 2500 points.

 

It's such a bullet magnet it rarely lives past my opponent's first turn. So for me it's relegated to games where I can afford to drop almost 500 points on a unit I'll probably only get one turn out of.

[Ishagu]

One is still worth it as long as you have other significant threats in your list to divert enemy firepower.

[Hfran Morkai]

It's like an A-10 and AC-130 had beautiful babies so take it anyway.

[Saxxon the Dragoon]

yeah, I got it because I wanted more BBBRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRTTTT in my life. almost finished building it last night but called it a night at 1 am.

 

just need to build the gunner pods, and magnetize the guns to finish this up. I gotta say though, as someone who has built a warhound, castigator, sicaran omega and a few other large resin kits. This thing by far has been a massive headache and pain in the ass. the main fuselage is nothing but misery to glue together.

I was considering doing the tiger-shark teeth with draconic head to match my chapter (Salamander successor) but free-handing it is going to be a pain in the ass. 

[Saxxon the Dragoon]

Just finished magnetizing the super muder balls. I am happy to finish this beast.

 

now the question is, go with the quad heavy bolters, or take the twin autocannons?

[The Unseen]

Quad Heavy Bolters all the way.

Autocannons are pretty mediocre, and are available on several other platforms.

[Ishagu]

Quad Heavy Bolters, definitely. Fantastic weapon.

 

Seems like your assembly of the model has gone pretty smoothly. Nice work :-)

[Claws and Effect]

Seems like your assembly of the model has gone pretty smoothly. Nice work :-)

This can't be overstated enough.

 

If you weren't on the brink of hurling it across the room 8n frustration multiple times, your build went well.

 

I only restrained myself from launching it by repeating to myself how much I paid for it.

 

The worst part is when pieces are warped so slightly you don't notice it....until another piece refuses to fit in the join created by 3 barely warped parts.

[MajorNese]

 

I gotta say though, as someone who has built a warhound, castigator, sicaran omega and a few other large resin kits. This thing by far has been a massive headache and pain in the ass. the main fuselage is nothing but misery to glue together.

...welcome to the number one modelling problem of heresy gamers.

 

The fire raptor is at least cleaner and easier to build than the first storm eagle casts. Damn, assembling one took a week, first filing down all the cast lines, then straightening the side sections to get every part of the model to the same postal code, then paste a pot of liquid greenstuff into all the gaps.

 

In terms of points, I'd compare it to the Thunderhawk in firepower, which I played a few times. Only difference is that the Thunderhawk cannon (a.k.a. Randomizedgun3000) is swapped for the avenger boltcannon, everything else is identical. To make it short, the firepower is impressive, and will thin out infantry (LoS should be no problem) while bringing down vehicles at the same time (Hellstrike FTW). Fixed 2D or 3D works wonders, even against the big ones, and only one weapon (the lascannons) may require the CP reroll for damage, to finish off something after the fixed damage guns fired.

 

Now, the thunderhawk is a lot more resilient (T9, 30W, 5++, -12" enemy ranged weapon range), but will still go down to fixed multiple damage and AP-2. If all of the enemy army's AT fires at it, it will die in a matter of 2 or 3 rounds. For the fire raptor, this might be one or two rounds depending on the list, a libby boosting it to T8 and a techmarine/TFC gunner repairing it (during a fly-over) might delay it for a while. If you have other, more immediate threats to soak up AT (prime example, an advancing IK) the fire raptor will kill a damn lot, if not, it will probably die in the first half of the game unless you kill the AT.

[BrotherAetherick]

I would go Quad Heavy Bolters. Nice job on putting it together. Mine's still in the mail and I'm dreading the thought that I might give up when building it, especially with the nerf from the FAQ.

[Claws and Effect]

Mine is built with quad heavy bolters and lascannons. Got the lascannons from Shapeways and had to perform surgery on it because I initially built it before they were an option.

 

The upgrade from Hellstrikes to lascannons is only 4 points, so I considered it well worth the cost.